Who: Everyone
When: August 9 and onward
Where: An unexpected destination
What: The newcomers go on a trip and end up far from where they expected
Warnings: Potential violence. Please label your content!

NOTE: PLEASE READ THIS OOC POST FIRST.

When the time comes for the travelers to go on the off-world trip that will help restore Thisavrou, they are not alone. Others who have settled on the planets longer and come to call them home are also prepared to travel; through the Ingress and do their part. Yet when the newcomers step through, whether they stepped through the Ingress seconds or hours apart, they will find that they have arrived at the same time, and only newcomers are in sight.

What awaits them is not a land of plenty. The land is barren, and dark storms in the sky resemble those held at bay by the Ingress complex—but much, much closer. Those who traveled on the Moira may recognize the landscape; though they have come through at a different point from the crash, they are on the Midway Hub. And there is no portal back. They are trapped.

hitting the road

Though some have been here before, the Midway Hub is not as they remember it. The storms fill the sky, leaving it dark and ominous even when they are not sweeping across the landscape—but they have clearly done so in recent times, and often. While never a lush land, large patches of ground an acre or more wide looking nothing more than utterly dead; the thistle that naturally grows is brittle, black and unable to be consumed even with the usual preparations to make it edible, and here and there animal corpses are found twisted into unnatural poses, but seemingly uninjured. These places are particularly concentrated near the broken Ingresses litter the landscape. While Midway Hub as a whole may seem naturally arid, these dead spots leave no hope that anything can possibly live there again.

The travelers have two options: stay where they are, or move on. While it might seem that they've been tricked into coming here and been left abandoned, those with the technological ability to do so may detect a sign of hope: a familiar energy source, far in the distance. Although none of the Ingresses they pass will ever work again, the faint energy shows that one still-functioning Ingress lies far in the distance, days away.

Although technological scanning or impressive memory of the landscape indicates that they are not separated from their destination by one of the gates that divide the land, they are also far from the shelter of the facility at the center of the Hub. Any attempt to travel in a direction other than that of the energy signal will result in a strange disorientation after several hours, bringing individuals back to their original path as though they've gone in circles. Meanwhile, though travelers will feel the need to slake their hunger and thirst through any natural water sources they discover, wildlife they can hunt for food and any supplies they have on them, if they don't find sustenance, they'll find that they will never pass out or reach the point of starvation. Instead, they'll be left alive and awake but feeling utterly hollow.

storm front

At regular intervals, the energy storms above descend onto the land, bringing not rain but violent clashes of negative energy and thunder so loud that nothing can be heard above it. The passing of the storms leaves some strange effects. The ground is warped and rotted by their touch, even solid stone degrading to a spongy surface. The air is tepid and oddly charged. Prolonged contact with air or ground will not supply energy, however — it drains it from organic and synthetic life alike.

Those who remember their last trip to the Hub, or simply explore in the right direction, may come across the cave complexes with their glowing surfaces and streams. The light is dimmer now, a sickly green, but drinking from the streams will still restore the energy lost, for a time. This time, however, the lethargy that inevitably follows is much more severe, and the drinkers are left with a raw, empty feeling leeching in from the wasteland around.

Those who are exposed to the storms, either by finding themselves in very close proximity or even closely observing them for too long as they approach, may lose their sight, or hearing, even much of the ability to feel touch — whatever sense they used in observation. What lingers in its place is a numbness. A hunger. And as time passes, the time between storms decreases; what seemed like hours between the storms becomes scarcely one, and their intensity grows.

wild life

Sentient beings are not the only ones affected by the storms; these creatures, attracted to sound and able to track by scent, and these panthers, which once looked normal but have been twisted by the storms into more monstrous forms, are numerous enough that travelers must be constantly alert for their presence. Though natural predators, the threat the creatures represent is not itself natural. They are also more aggressive. Some strange instinct drives them, not a need for food. While the panthers themselves can be caught and their meat cooked, it has little taste, offering nutrition but not satisfaction.

old familiar places

Although it's difficult to track the passage of time without day-night cycles, after what seems like more than a week of the travelers' unexpected trip, the storms abruptly come rushing in at the group of travelers, as if they're herding the group to move faster toward their destination and the Ingress energy that awaits them. The true nature of that destination becomes clear when debris appears on the horizon; the energy comes from the wreckage of the Moira, the interstellar ship that crashed here months ago.

Despite the trauma of impact, large sections of the ship remain surprisingly intact, though few of them are properly vertically oriented. If travelers are able to make their way inside the damaged sections of the ship, they'll find familiar territory, if they are one of those who traveled on the Moira, as well as shelter—something that's increasingly necessary as the storms seem to center over the ship, leaving little hope for survival outside. Useful items may be scavenged from the ship if they are willing to explore, but no personal items of any kind remain.

Strangely, the deeper travelers go into the crashed ship, the less familiar their surroundings will seem, regardless of their orientation. The inward-leading paths into the ship become generic metal, and as with the travel on the surface of the planet, they may find themselves back where they started. And no matter how far they go or how hard they try, they will find themselves unable to make it to the Ingress chamber itself...for now.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[The request gets a duck of the head and a murmured:] My apologies. [He isn’t sure what they’re doing when they reach behind themself—until they lay a backup on the ground between them.]

Oh! [His eyes widen. His tone changes quickly, polite facade giving way to embarrassment.] Sorry about that—it’s really not as easy to tell here as it is back home.

[He’d certainly never seen a Program this small back on Earth. Of course, there hadn’t been any need for Created resembling children in the Gardens.]

I’m Calla. [There’s something else odd about the other Program that doesn’t have anything to do with their size. Something in their expression just seems not quite there. It's possible they're in the same low-power state he himself had been in earlier, but if that's the case, they still seem sharper than he had been.] Are you alright?

...'s okay. 'M weird anyway.

[Frisk tilts their head slightly in his direction, nodding once when he introduces himself. They should probably try to drive him off, but...he's safe, isn't he? He's no User, and with how they are...just one conversation should be okay. Shouldn't it?]

Can't see. Was watchin' th' storm b'fore, n' then it all went dark.

[Their head bows down again, and they trace the pads of their fingers around the ridge of their disk.]

Tryin' t' keep outta th' way.

[Calla takes “weird” to mean “custom-made” here. It doesn’t faze him. Technically, he’s custom-made, too, designed specifically to fit the aesthetic of the Gardens, unlike the more homogenous template models. Though even he has to admit that Frisk’s form is stranger than even the other Programs he’s seen on Thisavrou.]

It might be the energy drain. The storms seem to do that. [He’d felt it too, back when he was trying to shut down. Sometimes he wishes another one would catch up with the group just so he could return to the gentle apathy of low-power mode. It’s much less stressful, in the long run.] I know a Program who might still have some batteries to share, if you want.

[Well...he wouldn't be wrong, necessarily.]

Huh? Oh...no, 'm not... [They...they don't want to tell him. It's so much easier, to pretend they're something they aren't, to fit the mold that's expected of them. They don't get hurt that way.] I can wait. It's okay.

[He doesn’t seem surprised by their refusal. In fact, something like understanding appears in his expression. It hadn't been so long ago that he had tried to run himself out of power as well.] If you change your mind, you can ask Yori for batteries. If not, [his voice quiets, almost conspiratorial.] it’s probably best to stay off her radar. [He turns just enough to give the other Program a view of the battery on his back, secured with a web of tape far too meticulous for him to have put it there himself.]

She means well, but she can be a little… pushy.

[They nod faintly--even without seeing, they can guess at what he's hinting at. Rinzler had been much the same, insisting they eat when they could still keep going, and all the others who had come to try and carry them along.]

[It's kind of funny. Back home no one even thought that Frisk might need help, but now everyone seems to want to rush to their aid when it isn't even needed.]

Okay. Um, what's...what's everyone doin' right now? In the ship?

[Calla belatedly realizes that they can’t actually see his back though they at least humor him by nodding. Hopefully, they took his meaning regardless.

Their question gets him to look back at the scattered Creators still milling around the ship.]

Some of them are just standing around looking at it. I think a few of them went inside, but I don’t know what they’re doing there. [This place clearly means something to them, but Calla knows it isn’t his place to ask. He’s sure they’ll be moving on soon, anyway.] Is yours here? Your Creator, I mean.

[Their creator? ...ha ha.]

No...but I lived here. B'fore it crashed.

[Frisk picks their disk up again, and slots it into place on their back.]

'S called the Moira. It went 'tween planets, tryin' t' find a way home for everyone.

Ah. [Calla looks up at the ship again and then at the Creators crowding around it. Had they lived on the ship, too, before they had settled on Thisavrou? It would explain their interest in the vessel—and perhaps the melancholy looks on many of their faces.]

Where’s “home?”

The worlds we lived on, before th' Ingress took us. It's broken a little bit, 'n th' Savrii 're trying to fix it 'n get us all back where we came from...if we wanna go.

[Frisk's voice is a little softer, a little more distant as they explain that part. They hadn't wanted to go home again...they still don't, not with what they know of themself now. They don't know what will happen, should another RESET claim the timeline they left, but...probably, whatever child is there in Frisk's place will be stronger than they were.]

[Calla mulls this over, trying to understand this situation that sounds like it was in place long before he ever arrived on Thisavrou.] I didn’t know the Ingress could just take people like that…

[Frisk makes it sound like none of them had wanted to come. It had been frightening enough coming here by choice. Calla can’t imagine what it must’ve been like with no forewarning or intent.]

But if the Savrii were trying to send everyone home, why did they send us here instead? Do you think they just… gave up?

I dunno. It mighta been an accident.

[Frisk doesn't really believe that, though, not after everything that's happened.]

There was an Ingress on this ship. They might get it workin' again, if it's still all t'gether.

August Event Log: Part I

hitting the road

storm front

wild life

old familiar places

bless u for remembering calla's noise even though i forgot to mention it OTL

-_-b

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